300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

Rising from the still-burning ashes and rotting flesh of the epic 2006 fantasy action hit 300, comes Rise of an Empire, another mega tale of a male testosterone super charged flick to douse the cinema screens with more blood, bone and guts.

We have already heard the rousing speeches, tasted the sweat of the sparsely clad muscular Spartans, seen the terror and pain inflicted on their foes, and mourned the tragedy of the Spartan defeat by the end of 300. Now with Rise of the Empire, we get 10 times more fighting, and 10 times more rousing chest thumping speeches from Greco-Spartan leaders, more eye-candy in a vampish Persian vixen commander, and a whole lot more of computer graphics mixed with live action fight sequences, over a heavily art filtered film. After sitting through the carnage and ceaseless bravado, you might just need to cool down with an ice cream and sign up for a full body massage with some Bach music piped in.

“Sh*t, I left my shield on the beach!”

“I told you to not to fart in my presence!”

While the first movie did their fighting on land, Rise of an Empire brings its fierce battles to the sea. The highlight of Rise of an Empire, of course, is on Eva Green who has given probably one of her best performances. She fits the role of the sly, vindictive and vengeful antagonist, Artemesia, perfectly, not only for her exotic looks and acting skills, but also her often typecasted characteristics of being brooding, captivating, seductive, and smolderingly sexy. She gets to wear some really nice costumes too. Her engaging role definitely commanded the audience’s attention and made the protagonist’s role ever more so important to survive and win.

It’s amazing how Artemisia and Themistokles can shoot with pinpoint accuracy while they are on a boat in choppy waters

There isn’t much to say about this epic war tale that’s loosely based on history. You either want to watch it or you don’t. Blood, severed limbs, beheadings, brawn, bravado and svelte Eva Green or may be Lena Headey.

The more tender moments at the beach

Sullivan Stapleton who plays the main protagonist hero, Themistokles, provides adequate male brawn as your Greek general whose role is blamed for Xerxes war of terror on Greece. Hot Brazilian actor, Rodrigo Santoro, returns as the Persian god-like Xerxes and has only a wee bit of screen time in this installment, to shed light into his transformation from human to divinity, and his reasons for waging an all out war, on the poor blokes in the movie.

“This is how I clean my jewelry”

Technically the movie is shot, just OK for me. There isn’t much of anything new in computer graphics, or a revenge plot we haven’t already seen or heard. My viewing partner commented that the blood and gore provided through computer imagery seemed unrefined and overdone. I agree, but for the general audience, this fact doesn’t really matter.

Its Raining Men!

Should you watch this epic Persian-Greek war tale?

Well, there aren’t any similar genre movies screening at the moment and at only 102 minutes, its short enough not to bore. It will definitely provide enough action entertainment for you and your buddies. Girls can once again ogle at armies of half-naked anglo-greco muscle men, and guys can ogle at the 2 main actresses plus the skull smashing fights. Expect anything more, and you will be disappointed.

300: Rise of an Empire starts splattering blood and bits of flesh in Malaysia cinemas, on the 6 March 2014.